Wayne Rooney's team-mates refused to blame the Manchester United striker for the red card he received in the 61st minute from referee Horacio Elizondo as England were sent home by the dreaded shootout for the fourth time in the past six major tournaments.

'It's ended for all of us tonight,' said captain David Beckham. 'I haven't even seen the incident on TV. But I do know that ten seconds before there were two players on his back. If the referee had seen that he couldn't have sent him off.'

Beckham was sent off in a last-16 match against Argentina at the 1998 World Cup in France. He received strong criticism as England were also then defeated on penalties in St Etienne. 'Will he be vilified like me? Who knows?' Beckham added. 'But I hope not. But Wayne is the future of the team. He'll pick himself up.'

Joe Cole, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and John Terry all claimed they had not seen the episode in which Rooney appeared to stamp on Chelsea central defender Ricardo Carvalho's groin and then push Manchester United team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo.

'Wayne had been fantastic. He has done so much for the team,' said Gerrard. 'I haven't seen the incident, but I'll give him a big hug because I love him. He'll get not blame from us. There were three men around him before the sending-off.'

Portugal coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, whose teams have now knocked England out of the past three major tournaments, claimed that the referee had made the right decision. 'If he thinks it was a red card then it is his decision.'

He did, though, voice his admiration for England's performance once Rooney had been sent off. 'They have played a wonderful match with ten men. The penalties are always a lottery. I want to value the attitude of the English players. It looked like 11 against 11. They did not give us many opportunities.'

But he was bullish about his team's prospects. 'Portugal can be world champions,' he argued. 'There is just one game left to the final. Now that the emotions have cleared, we are in the last four and we will be ready.'

Rooney, who had to be restrained as he walked off down the tunnel and left for the team coach after the game close to tears, became the eleventh England player to walk since Alan Mullery was sent off at the European Championship finals of 1968.

Rooney's team-mate Gary Neville had spoken before the quarter-final of the match being the time for England to deliver or 'all the talk about us being potential champions will have been rubbish'. After the defeat, he offered little excuse: 'We went down to ten men, but these are the moments that you have to deal with in major tournaments and we didn't. But no one will blame Wayne. I'll have to watch the game on TV, but during it I thought we were better. You don't get ten or eleven chances in a game - you only get three or four and we had them.'

Man of the match Owen Hargreaves had his best game for England in the holding midfield role and was the only player to score in the shootout. 'It's a great shame we lost. The keeper [Ricardo] is good on penalties,' he said. 'We tried our best, but they can go either way. He made some amazing saves.'

Having suffered abuse from England fans unfamiliar with the Bayern Munich player, Hargreaves was happy that they ended the game singing his name. 'I think it was great they were singing. But I can't take anything positive from tonight because we went out.'

Cristiano Ronaldo's antics came under criticism from observers. Former England captain and BBC television pundit Alan Shearer said: 'Wayne Rooney should go back to the Manchester United training ground and stick one on Ronaldo.'

Former England manager Terry Venables, who has been tipped to take up a role on the staff of Eriksson's successor Steve McClaren, predicted harsh criticism for Eriksson. 'They will be harsh,' he told ITV. 'But we have stumbled through. We have the players. But we keep changing the way we are playing. They are playing as if they are in shackles. We need to throw them off.'